Beryl Shipley (left) and assistant coach Tom Cox watch practice during their glory years at Blackham Coliseum where they Cajuns rose from the NAIA ranks to be ranked in the top 10 in America.

Written by

Dan McDonald
La. Sports Writers Assoc.

Beryl Shipley knew that some decisions he made while basketball coach at Southwestern Louisiana were not going to be popular with those in power.

He fought to take his all-white 1965 team to the NAIA national tournament, violating an unwritten Gulf States Conference rule that forbade league schools from playing against integrated teams. A couple of years later, he recruited African-American players at a time when the Deep South was still starkly segregationist.

When those decisions came to fruition and his teams became successful, it drew the ire of both university administrators and ...